Re: widgetx coming soon... maybe?

I've got some feedback from a web designer regarding skinning widgets,
custom skins, and default skins. But at this point I need to know more
on how to do it with the existing system in place. Any pointers?

I suspect that some issues are not addressed, e.g., switchable skins ---
I couldn't find a place to switch from Soria to other hypothetical skin.
If this is the case, this is a good candidate for the widgetx branch.

Thanks,

Eugene

Alex Russell wrote:
> Actually, that was far too terse. Here's what I'm thinking:
> 
> 1.) today, our widget set isn't truly "webish". This, in and of itself 
> isn't bad, but it may be a limiting factor going forward. It's not 
> anyone's "fault" that we have been building what amount to desktop 
> components that happen to run on the web, but we need to fill the gap 
> somehow.
> 2.) we aren't showing a ton of facility on our own in working through 
> the hard UX and ID problems that go along with evolving more "webish" 
> components, and that's OK too. I, for one, am a plumber, not a UX/ID 
> person. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to get help, though.
> 3.) the Yahoo patterns library is a good start, but clearly not the 
> be-all and end-all of how widget libraries can contribute to solving UX 
> problems. There's a need for a much more UX/ID community driven project 
> to compare notes and come up with a set of problem statements, 
> canonical approaches, and recommendations about how toolkits like Dojo 
> can implement those recommendations.
> 4.) as that happens, we need to be engaged such that we can deliver the 
> components that get invented or iterated on in such a process. Also, 
> developer participation is a requirement such that we can speak up when 
> something isn't going to work from a technical perspective.
> 
> I had planned to reach out to folks in the ID/UX community this week and 
> see if we can't get some sort of agreement that this would be a good 
> thing to do. If there's some sort of critical mass around it, I'm going 
> to suggest the Dojo Foundation as a place to work, but I really don't 
> care where it gets done so long as it gets worked on and the resulting 
> documents/recommendations are licensed in a friendly way.
> 
> Jesse, should I CC you when I start these discussions?
> 
> Everyone else: good idea? bad idea?
> 
> Regards
> 
> On Sunday 29 October 2006 11:48 am, Alex Russell wrote:
>> Do it in a branch.
>>
>> On Sunday 29 October 2006 9:41 am, Jesse Kuhnert wrote:
>>> Once the trunk/branch situation gets finalized I'd like to start a
>>> new subdirectory in the main tree for a little widget r&d. You may
>>> see a couple widgets duplicated (in name only) here and there, but
>>> it's not meant to be a competing sort of directory....Purely just
>>> research and fact finding stuff.
>>>
>>> If you don't like the idea of doing it just shield your eyes and
>>> pretend it isn't there. ;) Hopefully this will allow easy
>>> collaboration with others while also not impacting the core widget
>>> development tasks.
>>>
>>> I think a few of us have "an itch that needs itching" wrt to how a
>>> few things regarding widgets/objects/etc are done, so this seems
>>> like the ideal place to do it. If you are one of those people this
>>> message is meant to start your gears turning in the interim.
>>>
>>> The goals of what are to be done here aren't clear or formalized
>>> yet at all, so don't bother trying to pin anything down. It's just
>>> a general idea of "there has to be a better way". I know it's not
>>> stuff that fixes any one particular bug, but I've found that
>>> refactorings like this one tend to have side effects of fixing
>>> large globs of bugs without even knowing it.
>>>
>>> Generally speaking, my personal goals here are to :
>>>
>>> -) Reduce and compact the widget code by finding ways of re-using
>>> common blocks to do internal things...Maybe mix-ins will do well
>>> here. Not sure.
>>>
>>> -) Make the widget system & rendering of widgets "as fast as
>>> possible".
>>>
>>> -) Create and enforce some common styles of how to do things via a
>>> set of shared/common behaviors that people can expect. Simple
>>> things like escape key handling/whether or not to mangle or re-use
>>> existing html/etc...
>>>
>>> Probably more but there's too much potential to say for sure. I
>>> don't want to own the new subdir, just get it started so people
>>> interested can all collaborate and help figure this stuff out
>>> without traumatizing the current widget infrastructure.
> 
> 
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